This will probably by my last attempt to actually save what's left of quake.

I first wrote this as a single huge "Wall of Text" which as a term I might want to copyright ;ppp
But then thought I'd needed to make some subdivisions because it got too large.... You can still read it as if it's a single post though.

Here goes:
In my eyes the biggest, and possibly only, asset of quake is that it allows the players to fully utilize whatever skills they have.
The sheer responsiveness of the game with the insanely natural weapons (which each have distinct features) and the maps allow for this. And these aspects of the game are non-existent in other games where you are much much more limited by the game itself.

This is what leads to 10 - 0 games when one player is even slightly better than the other and 30 - 0 games when theres an large skill gap. But it also means that whenever the skillgap is small games are very close and intense and can switch around due to some good/bad decisions.

---- prelude (what is balance / gameplay) ----
Now before I start there is 1 thing that people should truelly understand about gameplay / balance.
And that is that balance simply means which skill can influence the game by how much. And gameplay comes out of how that balance is achieved.

Example1 (aim):
If you would reduce the LG dmg Toxjq can gain less advantage from his aim and thus he will lose more games against Rapha.
If you would increase LG dmg even more then obviously the other way goes and Toxjq will win more games against Rapha.

Example2 (items):
If you make items more important for instance by multiplying their benefit by 1.5, this will obviously favor Rapha and thus he will win more games vs Toxjq.
Again the other way around also holds.

Example3 (level design):
If you have an LG at an easy accessible place this will obviously favor Toxjq. If however it's on a small platform surrounded by lava that would favor Rapha.

Example4: (sound design):
If you'd be able to hear jumps throughout the entire map and thus know where any 'fast moving opponent is' the overall gamespeed will be much slower, even if you do not alter any movement/weapon balance.
Similarly if you'd remove jumpsounds from the game theres less penalty in moving fast and thus the gamespeed will increase.
It is difficult to say who this would most favor though ;)

----- end of examples ----

So all these things come into play when you talk about gameplay / balance.

However in the given examples both players can fully utilize their skills!
Rapha can time everything to the second and Toxjq is free to aim... There are no limitations* as there are in other games. (see below)

As a conclusion you can say that "Rapha will win games against Toxjq IF he managed to gain a larger advantage out of item plays than Toxjq can get out of his dmg output.
The complexity here is that Toxjq can only aim that well because of how he moves around and possitions himself on the map and Rapha's control is due to the same aspect but different choices (which is due to their relation with the balance of the game).

Now unlike most people I don't think that "the changes will destroy the game" and "the game will be unbalanced" but they will heavily influence the gameplay. But it's not like the game will suddenly not be balanced or that it's no fun anymore. Actually when I try to imagine how it would play, it's not all that crappy for a game.
However!!! What bothers me is that it limits some options for players to utilize their skill. For instance limiting movement speed to 2x base movement. This obviously restricts people who are good at movement.
It also reduces the need for good movement and thus the games will be "closer on default" but the best player will still win... unless(!!) the losing player actually has godlike movement but can't use it in order to gain a large enough advantage.
This same change will also heavily favor people with somewhat decent aim. As a model moving at 2x base speed is not all that difficult to hit (at least not with the current base speed).

Drawing 'timers' at items which indicate passing seconds also heavily reduces the options to actually make people misstime. It's really hard to even make people misstime items by 3 seconds or more (at high skill levels). Now you're forcing people to delay it by 5 seconds. Although when it does work you could put them into more of a problematic situation... but limits so many options that it's almost never worth it for a player to try and leave items up and trick the opponent.
Timing stuff "to the second" becomes ultra retardedly easy as you just have to stand there when the "pie is complete" so theres no skill needed except for knowing in which 5 seconds the item spawns... which even fairly bad timing players can probably do.

Pretty much giving people infinite ammo by reducing ammo respawn times further reduces the need to actually have ammo control. Which already was reduced significantly from Q3 -> QL.

I'm not sure about if loadout means that you can only carry 2 weapons at once... I believe that it does... which would be extremely limiting.... You can't even rocketjump if you're carying an LG / Rail if that's the case.... On the other hand it does present you with multiple problems which you might have to solve which can lead to a more complex gameplay...

Lastly: The most retarded thing you can possibly do is to make gameplay different between paying costumers and the free to play players.
This will obviously lead to a lot of friction..... It will basically split the scene in 2.
There is 1 small + point to this though which is that all "new players" will in general be on different servers than all "oldschool players".
However this won't be long because online cups should be open to everyone (not just to paying costumers) and there will be 'free cups' regardless of any effort to stop that. And because the largest audience is there... the largest prizes will go there... so the best players will go there.

So to be short: Quake is utilizing your skills to own the opponent. Stopping players from doing that... would mean that it's not quake anymore.

--- end of part 1----
--- part 2 (what should be fixed) ----

The REAL problem quake has is that players hate to get owned in a way that they don't see how not to get owned.

The matchmaking in QL is non-existent and therefor new players are continuously being owned rather than having close matches against eachother and then slowly improving towards the better end of the spectrum (if they put in effort... if they don't put in effort then they should remain having fun games against other new players). And in that lies a big issue for quake.... Because as time has progresses it's obvious that if some "noobs get better while others don't" that eventually there will by some guys left who just loose all matches, unless they play eachother.

History bit:
In Q3 there was a huge influx of new players all at once who all were crap at FPS games (because it was very new at the time). They all had a blast for a long time but eventually a skill gap emerged. This was somewhat solved in Q3 due to the fortunate release of OSP which obtained all "trying" players while all "new players" played VQ3. Although this was fortunate for new players in Q3 it was unfortunate for the game on the whole. As seperate communities began to arrise which had little in common.
Then QL came around and quite a few players already were pro from Q3 but there also was a huge influx of new players. Half of these new players probably dropped out due to the waiting queue to get into the game... but the other half had a fairly good time and start in QL. But because theres already a heavily skilled community playing it, and there was no restriction on joining servers obviously fairly soon all servers were dominated by oldschool players who reduced the fun for new players as they got destroyed. Which lead to another exodus of players from quake.

Now there may be another mass influx of players to QL....
Do you really want them to struggle against the limitations of the game? Or do you want them to experience the gameplay that allows them to finaly see who is the better FPS-player?

----- some examples of limitations of players in other games and the lack of limitation in Quake ----
CS has a 'random spread' and virtually no movement skills required also there are no items at all so you don't need any timing.
UT has one of the worst input systems in the history of mankind as it's a huge struggle to even get your mouse to do what you want. Also their movement is extremely fixed (imo).
In quake however we even have mods like Defrag and now Race which focus purely on a single aspect. Next to that we have Instagib that also focusses completely on a single aspect. Both of these are not "mastered" in a way that any person can do it perfectly. So even the core elements in QL are without any real skill ceiling.

--- ending remarks ---
I think that's about it..... Ofcourse I could go into more depth about why each individual balance change will influence the gameplay in a certain way... but that would give rise to the debate if that balance change would be for the better or for the worse. Which is a very difficult point to anwer.
Imo any change that "removes things you can be good at" is a bad change. But "reducing/increasing how important it is to be good at one thing is up for debate". (For instance reducing LG from 7 to 6 may be a good thing for a lot of players... But there is a way to reduce LG importance without altering the damage output... but I've already said everything about that in previous posts... So please don't bring netcode up as a reply to this post :D)

So do you want QL to remain what I see as Quake..... Or do you want to turn it into a game like CS / UT.

Excellent column, the problem here is the developers, they are aiming for lots of players the easy way. The funny thing is, no new players are going to care by ruining Quake 3 into an Halo abortion, and at the same time the old school players will leave. These guys have literally no idea.

I've said it before, we have Q3 gameplay as the base for objectively the best fast paced FPS, and we have it's aesthetics, also objectively great while covering everything (robotic maps/models like Q2, weird fantasy/arena-ish like Q1, all wrapped in one combined nicely), and we have the sounds which are also spot on. The moons aligned with Q3, so there is no such thing as "moving on from Q3". When you move from something, it has to be of better or at least equal quality. This is certainly not the case with any of the new shitty FPS released lately and/or in development. So now we had QL, which was a positive idea in the right direction, but executed poorly. id has the core gameplay and aesthetics copyrights to push Q3 to the next level. What we needed was a facelift for current industry standards (Q4 was a BAD facelift because it was just a shitty game, doesn't count). Then we needed matchmaking. Then we needed advertisement and marketing. We needed it f2p and being able to unlock premium content by playing (LOL model) so you get more incentive to play beyond just beating other players, by unlocking content, and you give poor people that can't spend an extra penny a chance (lots of these people nowadays due economic crisis).
Then you just need to wait until the moons align again and fast paced FPS become trendy again, because the game will be objectively the best out there for this genre. If it doesn't pick up within the popular then at least it will be people's fault at having a shit taste, not the game's fault. Just like how the moons aligned for Starcraft in Korea (the best game for the genre, and the best society to appreciate an high quality game). This is what we need. At least now with LOL, even if it's a shitty game, it has put e-sports into the mainstream. Now we need a game that isn't embarrassing to call it e-sport, this Q3 2.0 or QL 2.0 whatever you want to call it, is objectively the best candidate to fill the fast paced FPS gap. Because trends come and go and eventually people will get into fast paced FPS games. And you don't want a shitty Quake ripoff like Reborn, Toxikk, Reflex or any these shitty games, to take Quake's spot on that decisive moment. So you keep betting on making Q3/QL the highest quality fast paced competitive FPS platform, and eventually, the moons will align. And if they don't, well, at least you have objectively the best fast paced FPS and you will have an audience that is intelligent/sensitive enough to appreciate quality in videogames. What id is doing now is being left with nothing, no 12 year old LOL/cod players and no 26+ year old old school intelligent Quake players, because Halo already exists and no one of these dumb newbies are going to care about Q3 minus what made Q3 special.

Well there are still many ways in which QL can be improved.
Also Q3 as it was released wasn't as supreme as you make it out to be. It was patched & modded into almost the best it can be.

I think that (afterwards patching&modding) is also the reason for Q4's failing. In Q3's time we accepted all of the changes made by the developers and the modding community, but nowadays a competitive game should really come pre-packaged with it. Also it has to run on high frames/second.

I don't really know what you mean with "facelift" though... I don't think that QL would benefit from prettier graphics. (if that's what you mean)

Yes, exactly, im talking about the CORE, as in the graphics, and the basic gameplay, of course the community had to come to polish the game (OSP and CPMA).

Now what grinds my fucking gears is they had all of this already out (OSP and CPMA) but they released something that was somehow even worse than 1999 baseq3 and asked for people to pay for it shortly after.

What they need is hiring the actual OSP and CPMA developers to do all the polishing, because these guys haven't got a clue.

That's actually a good idea... feels like these current QL devs don't know whats good... some of them do, though.

Too bad knowing the CPMA devs they would probably up the anti a lot, since they're making CPM due to 'QL sucking'. But ID doesn't seem like it's willing to pump to much resource into keeping QL alive. I think they're just waiting and passively patching at this point. If the game wasn't technically an e-service (and was a product like Q3A), they would have dropped it for dead even earlier IMO.

IDS are just updating because it is something that has people on subscription. They kind of trapped themselves.

I must say i liked the column. I hope the steam release adds a lot of new players and is able to keep them.

But what ID really has to do is make a new quake.

When quake 3 arena was released i was a q1/qw player. i had played quake for 2-3 years already. But i felt like it was time for a new game. Q3 was a great succes and almost completely joined the q1 and q2 community.

Result was a great and alive community and a FPS game that really grow lan tournaments and there was price money. CPL had quake3arena as its main game and there where multiple big tournaments. Quakelive never reached that level although most of us here want it to reach it.

We need a new game from ID focused on competitive multiplayer with state of the art grafics.

With this quakelive to steam thing i hope they focus on interaction with the scene and growing scene activity. So when they ever make this game there is a good support network for it to help it grow.

We need give al the PC gaming kids an alternative to the more and more hated CODs (all cods counted aprox 30.000 active players at any time.)on the PC. The fun to play cant detect to much skill TF2 (av 75.000 active players at any time.) the maybe lost forever CS players (175.000 active players at any time.) who believe skill has mainly to do with patience and pre aiming a gun towards one direction the longest.

I mean surely we believe a new quake focused on multiplayer should be ablt to get a large part of these players no?

And quake once more will be in the spotlight it deservers in the fps gaming community.

There has been a lot of talk about item timers like pies on the ut4 dev forums. Even though it is not wanted here there is enough discussion about different aspects of timing, items and whatnot to make it worth having a flick through. .

Why is this relevant to the current discussion? Because the solution that ql has been given* is the farthest step away (short of putting timers on everyone huds) from something that teaches timing from the gamut that has been discussed there. The "timer on the item" does not actually teach timing or item control. To time and duel, etc you would make very little use of a count down timer on the spawn point. Its not actually very useful at all. This method might prompt newer players^ to take note of items but beyond that does little for the mechanics of timing.

The ut dev forums also give an insight into less-than-stellar players thoughts on various things. This is interesting because finding out what lower level players think about a given topic shows the massive holes in their understanding. There are two that come to mind from the ut dev forums. 1) Obtaining the number is important and this is harder with a 27 second spawn time vs a 55 second spawn time 2) Timing to the exact second is super important in duel at all times.

Anyway kinda getting off track here.. quake should be quake and I agree that there are other ways of balancing lg(one small point in the whole thing but you finished on it so I will too!) rather than just changing the damage.

*it also seems to be the direction the ut4 devs are going which is sad.

^ receives an inordinate amount of love on the dev forums. Almost every discussion seems to include at least a little" but could my retarded understand this?"

The beauty of quake is that it's not limiting it's players.
Inserting item timers like that does limit the players. To "know the times in general" is a skill, to "know the exact time at all times" is mastering the skill (not that great an advantage compared to knowing the times in general). Now there are situations in which "knowing the exact time" can pay off huge. Mainly if you can pick up items during a closerange fight.
If you'd have a pie becomming complete both players would see this exact time of spawn drawn... So you don't actually have to "be waiting on an item place" if you only "know the time in general" because you'll see that the pie isn't complete yet -> you have X seconds. So in effect you reduce "mastering the skill of timing" into "knowing which 5 second gap the item will respawn in".

Which you can jump high/low about is easier to do than timing exactly.... which means that you reduce options for the players. Which in my eyes means that you tear down the one thing that makes quake quake. (now adding those timers isn't a HUGE LEAP towards braindead players... but it's the wrong mindset to do so)

Wouldn't it be an idea to display item times in practice modes when you play against bots. And maybe in unranked duel games?

That way you can practice timing without getting destroyed the first times you play, and it will also be more of a practice game.

And also the way to make more players stay is in a gamemode that limits player skills. I wrote about it a long time ago.

You just make it like domination where you capture a control point by standing near it and then that point belongs too your team. Each control point ticks up your teams score. You get too choose a class that spawns with a certain amount of health/armor and that class weapon. Grunt was rocket/shotgun 100/100 health, sniper has rail and mg 100/50 health/armor and so on. This way you will remove weapon control and the problem of spawning without a weapon. You will remove the problem of spawn rape since you spawn and can defend yourself with that health and armor

This way you can also keep the high skill level of duel untouched without problems.

Ofcourse that's an option.
I think that the addition of the "movement maps" in QL (with the tutorial stuff etc) was a good improvement as well.

But there are 2 sides to this...
1) the player has to choose to practise the 'dumbed down version'.
2) any option presented to the player is in general a bad move. At least it is initially.

Like if you join quake and the first thing you have to do is go through 10 tutorials of how the game works... that'll be shit. Or if you're presented with 5 different practise modes will also be horrible. Just like nowadays you're actually presented with like 15 different gametypes?? (They even inserted a search field for the gametypes.....)

So yes sure you can implement something like that... But how you present it is a large part of the puzzle. Because you would like to present it to players "who want to get better at item timing" while you don't want to present it to "players who just wanna jump in and frag stuff" (which would be the vast majority).

I would much rather see effort being put towards stuff like matchmaking and in general a better "entry into the game".

Well there are a lot of if's then's and valid options and invalid combinations of options etc.

It's not as simple as just "make a practise mod" and that people will automatically use it or even know how to use it.

If you would want to make a game where all players "compete" and think that all players of your game would "want to improve" then you would give such a practise mode a very prominent place.
But most people just wanna jump into a server and shoot at running things a bit. So if you want to attract those players... tutorials on how to improve (like explaining timing, possitioning etc) aren't very useful.

In my eyes it's much better to create a fun game where having skills pay off (and people aren't limited in their skill development). That way whenever you match 2 equally skilled players the game will be fun.

Well of course it is the best if you have a proper matchmaking system where you get to play people of your level. But to have just some information about item spawn times, how to aim with different weapons and such is more important the community here seems to understand.

My brother installed Q3 and played the singleplayer campaign recently and i had too explain everything too him. Things like when items spawn how to aim with weapons, thy he should move over there now and such. New players doesn't know shit about quake, how to time items or sometimes even why to time items. That's why a tutorial would be good. If a plyer gets destroyed and doesn't know why he/she could just go through the tutorial.

Although I understand where you're comming from... The way of thinking is very flawed.

Because in principle it doesn't matter that anyone who starts with the game would be increadibly bad at it. It just matters if it's fun or not.
If your brother enjoyed playing against the "I can win bots" then he'll want to play the game more and thus he'll eventually improve at it.

The skill you actually have in quake is irrelevant for the fun you have.
What does somewhat matter is that it's not fun to be raped 30 - 0 on your first go which is why matchmaking and a progression through the game is needed.

I don't even think the visual timer thing is going to help new players. It's not even clearly stated what the HP/AR respawn timers are right now. So it's basically just showing new players "Hey this item is coming up" if they happen to be in that room on the map within an X-range time period.

A bunch of the proposed changes kind of feel like ID want's everyone to be able to compete, but they don't want to have anyone actually learn anything. (Or can't be bothered making proper tutorials).

On top of that, if they don't introduce a some-what decent matchmaking and tutorial system, all the changes in the world aren't going to stop veterans from stomping noobs in mismatched games under the current system.

My biggest gripe is they seem to be focusing on the wrong 'weak point'. They feel they need to dumb down the game to make it noob fun/friendly yet the thing that brings in casual players and keeps them there are community features and the ability to find good games. (Bnet1.0 v Bnet2.0 on launch is a prime example).

After reading/partaking in the ut discussions I feel that the id devs probably want to use the pie thing to educate newer players and for whatever reason feel that this is the best way to go about it. This seems to be a major reason why it is being implemented in ut4 and given the general feeling of the new ql patch it is what the id devs want to do as well.

However using on item indicators does not teach timing. The most it might do is indicate to new players that "this thing" could be important because it has a pie chart attached to it.

The main problem with the timer being on the item is this is a complete disconnection from how timing ties into the game.

I realise this is tangential to what you are saying. What you claim is correct. What I am trying to put into words is that.. even if ID should do something they are picking the wrong thing to do for items. There has been a huge amount of discussion by people less adverse to change than esr and they have basically picked the worst implementation available. Maybe this is not a really special message as the majority on esr seem to be shouting that sponge/syncerror are retards, but I feel it is relevant as it has another party agreeing with it.

Basically a pie chart attached to a red armor teaches a new player nothing. They achieve very little by going down this road and it is sad.

If they go ahead with these idiotic changes then there should be a mass subscription cancel and an organized move to an agreed version of vq3, with major contributors to the scene such as streamers, coders and ranking websites all chipping in and spreading the word to bring it as close to an official move as possible, therefore bringing the younger newer players along for the ride.

We also need a proper anticheat and not syncerror's dumb decisions as an anticheat.
How can your "anticheat" let Cabaiia (caballa) play hitting insane LG when he's a known aimbotter and he got banned 2 times before. Even p0ni has a weaker LG FFS.
And banned bebek after he paid 2 pro subscriptions because of nothing (maybe some rages at pickups) when he has shown he is top 5 TDMer according QLRanks.
With that stupid decision, about 10 spanish players left QL 2 years ago and afaik only one of them is playing like 1 game per month
(nice way to kill the game bro).

They also need to work on countering people that are trying to circumvent bans. Because, it takes me approximately 10 minutes to get everything changed and play again. (The timer on my phone says 9:32).

I agree with you in a lot of ways about what makes Quake great. However, I feel like your post is a little misguided in this context specifically.

It's not about what changes are great for a new Quake, for which your post would be great. Quake is indeed king of letting everybody play with an absurd amount of incredibly difficult, uncap-able skills, instead of limiting them and funneling everything towards a few important skills and a bunch of small ones like nearly every other game does. This is definitely something a person making a new deathmatch game should keep in mind.

What is the problem here is that we have a community that stood by nearly the same gameplay for 15 years (1999 - 2014), and a community that has expectations regarding both changes in gameplay and the enviroinment they play it in.

Instead of adapting the enviroinment like a modern developer (or anyone who played any modern MP game) would expect them to, they're going to split the community and throw everyone at a mess of a combination of Quake and CoD or something. Not only this will scare all the oldschool people away due to being the opposite of what anyone wants, new players won't enjoy the game that's half-hard-as-fuck, half-shitty-Halo-clone. Any of them that will stick will be enjoying a weird mess of a game that is nothing like Quake, and at that point, why would any of them swich to one hardest games ever if it has just been ravaged by the creators themselves, and its core community hates it?

So it's a problem of expectations and needs in your core community, expectations from newbies, and not adressing the latter in ways that wouldn't break the first. And the former would be instrumental should any newbies actually want to stay.

Sure. I'm saying that it's not the best way to argue against what id are doing, because developers tend to not care about skillgaps or how hard games are. They're quick to dumb games down even.

The way to argue more successfully is that we have a resilient community that not only likes hard gameplay, but like this specific kind of gameplay. Fucking shit up for them for a wild shot (without any reason to expect success) at gaining newbies is a bad idea. Especially when you could try ways that are tried and true, and don't require you to fuck over your core community - basically those that everyone has been raving about for years.

You start decently but the part about the limitations in other games is pretty weak, sorry. First of all, just because you could not set up your mouse in UT doesn't mean it is a crap game, and fyi it also has "race" and instagib modes. So I don't know why you would go on with "In quake however ..". And secondly, I truly do not enjoy playing cs but if you say it not having items is a limitation, you could as well say that not being able to earn money / buy items is a limitation in ql. It's just biased as fuck.

Personally I think the changes got potential - if done right. What would make sense to me is to separate players based on their skill level. Novice players need most help to enjoy the game, so give them a loadout with 2 weapons and full item timers. Intermediates can handle more weapons, so give them a loadout of 3 and also timers solely for their own items. On pro level, there shouldn't be any restrictions regarding loadout and also no timers.

Why would novice player need help to play vs other novice players though? Isn't it much cleaner to let everyone play the same game?

In most racing games there is some sort of driving assistance for novice players because otherwise they would have a hard time keeping the car on the track, get frustrated and leave. It's similar in quake live. If you don't understand the gameplay mechanics or maybe are not fully capable yet of applying your knowledge for whatever reasons, it is not much more than green robots shooting at each other. Gets dull quickly.

What is it then that does make the game fun for novice players? Let's be brutally honest here. If you take away (or ignore) the gameplay mechanisms that make quake unique, you will end up with a below average shooter (compared to today's standards) that gets dull quickly. So I would love to see an approach that gradually teaches how to play the game and makes it more challenging with your skill progressing.

You probably wanna end up going for "'knowing which weapon to buy' and 'moving as a team' is the hard thing" innit?
Because pressing a bind before a round starts can be done by a monkey.

I wrote (a long time ago) that any FPS is equally difficult because it's always a player vs player situation. Even if the game is completely unbalanced the more skilled player will win in the long run. (Given that the spawn places are random etc.)

But in all fairness CS has tried to increase randomness in the game in order to not let noobs be raped. So where in QL a game would be 30 - 0, in CS it could be something like 7 vs 3.
And that doesn't make it any easier / harder... it just makes it not quake.

I'm not here to diss other games... But every game which is not quake has chosen to "mess up their FPS" such that games are close even if skillgaps are large.

btw in the teammodes of CS ofcourse the "randomness" is spread over multiple players and teams tactically try to reduce it as much as possible etc. Which is why scores in that are more often one-sided.

---
Hmmm I feel as if I should actually explain it with different words... But can't really find them atm

You have clearly never played cs or cod before, so you shouldn't speak of what you don't know. If anything, in cs it's even easier to rape someone 30 to 0, due to the lowest time required to kill wich allows you to kill someone receiving back exactly 0 damage. It's almost impossible to generate 20 kill streaks in quake, while it's not that hard in games like cod 4 if you are really much better than the rest of the server.

How the fuck is aiming in cs random (talking about 1.6)?
Yes, you can get a lucky headshot on a better player but that doesn't net you the round or even the win. So you have to be pretty damn lucky to kill them all in one round with just pure luck).
And don't argue about pub play. Argue on a 5v5 lvl and you'll see that luck spreads out evenly in the long run.
Btw. quake has its randomness too or wouldn't you agree that initial spwan on aero is often game deciding)?

But it's part of the idea behind CS.
The concept is this:
1) Let's make each kill very important.
2) Let's make each kill depend on random variables.
3) noobs can take out a good player in a round and they will feel super awesome that they did so.
4) they will play again even if they get owned in several rounds because eventually they will randomly hit someone and feel good about themselves.

Now to get really good in CS takes skill.... but it's very different from the skills you need in QL. For instance almost half of being skilled in CS is moving according to how your weapon functions. Knowing how many ms before you press fire you need to walk in order for your crosshair to be accurate... stuff like that.

And that doesn't make it a retarded game... it just makes it not quake. Because in quake the beauty is that there are almost no limitations on the player.

And no I don't think that the initial spawns on aero will decide the outcome. It might favor someone a bit more but you have enough time to turn the game around if you're good enough at the map (aka slightly better than your opponent).

Again. How is it random? Still waiting for an example. Otherwise you are just spilling random bullshit.

3) noobs can take out a good player in a round and they will feel super awesome that they did so.

Yes. You feel super awesome despite getting 16:0 and having zero chance to win. Having played vs pros in 1.6 I had literally no chance in beating them. We took 2 rounds. Great fun xD. Better players will win as they do in quake.

4) they will play again even if they get owned in several rounds because eventually they will randomly hit someone and feel good about themselves.

Again you talk about fucking pub level. There aren't any decent players on pubs. Never have been and never will be because they play 5v5 and not who can camp longer in dust2 t base :/
Stop comparing apple to oranges. Or you think ffa tier3 pub server is the same as pro duel level o_O?

Now to get really good in CS takes skill.... but it's very different from the skills you need in QL.

No, not really. Seeing how some ex cs players do in quake I'd say aim and brain is required in both games to do good).

For instance almost half of being skilled in CS is moving according to how your weapon functions. Knowing how many ms before you press fire you need to walk in order for your crosshair to be accurate... stuff like that.

Why am I even arguing with you? You have absolutely no clue about cs ..

Because in quake the beauty is that there are almost no limitations on the player.

Ah well there is. If you can't aim for shit you will have a hard time. It's true tho that quake offers you a big skillset to excel. But in the end superior combat skills and a tad bit of game understanding will get you past 2,2k elo.

nd no I don't think that the initial spawns on aero will decide the outcome. It might favor someone a bit more but you have enough time to turn the game around if you're good enough at the map (aka slightly better than your opponent).

Ah yeah but I was talking about equal opponents and not about somenoe who is slightly better rofl. Then it is fucking random. You don't have any control over it. It's bad. It is in quake. Aka mr. thereisnogamedecidingrandomness in quake.
I'm gonna stop it here unless you come up with better arguements because talking to you is like talking to a fucking wall ...

Inb4 yes in the long run start spawns equal out but it is not the same because you have to press in x ms to line up a headshot. No wonder noone takes you serious lel.

"Again you talk about fucking pub level. There aren't any decent players on pubs. Never have been and never will be because they play 5v5 and not who can camp longer in dust2 t base :/
Stop comparing apple to oranges. Or you think ffa tier3 pub server is the same as pro duel level o_O?"

EXACTLY.
I AM TALKING ABOUT PUBLICS.

Do you think that CS is popular because it's awesome to play clanned and see your tactics bring you to a final of a major tournament?
Do you think that Q3 was popular because everyone traveled around the world to compete in duel lan tournaments?

No they are popular because the games are fun. And quake is fun because of certain aspects and CS is fun because people (even very bad players) feel like they attribute to the success of their team... Heck in CS you are on the winning team half the time. Even if you're retardedly bad... Because the other team probably has someone equally crap in it.

I'm saying that the proposed changes will reduce the things that make quake a fun game to play (absolute freedom and the ability to improve at very different aspects and still be rewarded for your improvement).

I'm saying that the proposed changes will reduce the things that make quake a fun game to play (absolute freedom and the ability to improve at very different aspects and still be rewarded for your improvement).

True. Really good sentence about quake and why it is so good. That's why you don't nerf and/or limit proven core features. It has never done any good in any game that I know of.
The problem why ql duel is not fun is mainly netcode and spawnsystem (gameplay wise). Changing weapon dmg won't help at all but what ya gonna do when the two developers are stubborn idiots)

"Changing weapon dmg won't help at all but what ya gonna do when the two developers are stubborn idiots)"
Well I kinda wrote a column on it. And I've tried to talk sense into them for many years before as well.

but i dont play with or against crap or mediocre players bud.. iive competed in cs for 5+ years and played for almost 10

ive played cal main and currently play in esea main, i can tell you first hand that the game challenges you on sooo many different levels than quake duel does and ive played duel for many years to against high elo opponents, the game may be "random" when you are bad and are also playing againt bad people in some pub with no structure what so ever but the same thing can happen with a bad vs bad in clan arena or FFA....

cs has a huge clutch factor that quake duel does not, do you think its easy to be in a high pressure match in league finals and the score is 15-14 and you have 20hp and are 1v4 with 50 seconds and have to find a way to fake out/outbrain the enemies to split them up and get 1on1 fights and come out on top of them all etc

the game has many skill aspects that quake does not and vice versa, quake has aspects that cs does not also which is why both are fun and challenging at the top level

you are saying the game doesnt challenge or take as much skill as quake when that is completely wrong and considering you have not plyed the game at a high level you have no position to decide that either

I don't really mean to say that quake > cs in terms of overall skills.
Where do I say that?

Don't I just say that some skills which we have in quake are non-existent in CS? I don't mention the other way around much... because I'm not talking about changes to CS.
Just differences between quake and cs.

Aka both gameplays are fine, one is better suited for a certain type of player though. But you shouldn't "reduce the things that make quake different" for no apparent reason.

That quake is not the perfect game you're trying to make it out to be. Stop using phrases like "lack of limitation" and "absolute freedom". You sound like a parent describing how smart and pretty their child is. It's pathetic.

I think I made clear what I mean by "lack of limitation"...
Just the fact that there are mods like "race" and "instagib" that both get played a lot means that movement in itself is fun and that only railing is fun.
Now I'm not that familliar with CS... but I don't know any kind of "race" mode in it which is actually played. Nor would it seem like a very fun thing to do.

The fun thing about quake is that people with awesome aim or movement or timing or possitioning can go up against eachother and the game will be close.

ok then race means that movement in quake needs a lot of skill and is fairly impossible to perfect. (which makes it fun)
in CS movement is kinda limited because you can't gain overall speed which (in my eyes) makes it dull and boring. Although "within the concept of the game" it fits well.

Also the hard thing in CS isn't to move around it's to still be able to aim while moving around and to avoid certain easy places for opponents to hit you.

It's hard to compare the pure movement as a single part of the game... but possibly yes.

I dislike other things in cpm though. But it's a balance thing more than a skill thing.
I think that CPM focusses more on raw aim and movement skills while QL also allows for more interresting item plays.

I agree it shouldn't be dumbed down any more but I just hate this esr "we have the perfect game" circle jerk. It's not a perfect game, it never was, it wasn't even designed for competition. Can we drop the superiority complex and try to have some progress instead of the 10+ year old stagnation?

Anyway the thing that's really messed up is how asynchronous QL is on the server. This allows for a playstyle where +forward LG is too powerfull compared to the other weapons which is why ID now is reducing the dmg for the weapon... which is not the right solution to the problem.

I also really dislike that because "all weapons are toned down" from Q3 while movement has gone up in speed that you now see almost constant fighting while in Q3 that was not the case. To "keep control" is not all that usefull anymore and I think that it's sad to see such an element slowly dissapear from quake.
Although you might say that it does favor skills like aim and movement... I don't like a balance where "the braingame" is reduced to this. I similarly didn't like CPM because the emphasis on aim/movement is too large there for my taste.

What I disliked in Q3 in general was how split the community was.
Gameplay wise I feel like Q3 was great early on because all hardware was limited but gradually the large hitboxes started to catch up with the game. And therefor it kinda suffered in the past years of aimwhoring players.
Also that the hitboxes didn't rotate with the model but stayed fixed compared to the level was really messed up. That should've never been implemented that way.

There are lots of things which "could be better" in quake... But there are also a lot of things that can make QL worse.
Splitting the scene AGAIN and adding more gametypes to it are 2 of those things. Limiting movement and drawing item timers are 2 other things....

Control has less importance for a completely different reason - the spawn system. You played for control because you could turn one frag into many, nowadays one frag is just that - the one.

I don't think I'll ever get what you lot are on about with "brain game". To me four items between two people on a small map simply cannot yield anything more than an A or B choice. It doesn't matter that CPM is faster in that aspect, the choices are the same and very basic. Furthermore in both games no matter what choice you take it will always need aim to be fruitful. This idea that "brain" needs to have an equal footing as skill in a shooter(and a fast paced one at that) or that it can be anything more than the simplest metagame... I just can't see it. I think it only serves to a skill ceiling which is long overdue.

I also hate the console btw!
Players shouldn't need the console ever... I like it that I can setup the game exactly the way I want it to be...
But I would much more prefer it if I knew that everyone was playing the exact same game as me.

A more user friendly console would be nice. I don't remember if there was a way to search for commands in the Q3/QL console. And by searching I mean matching key words from command lines, descriptions and possibly tags.

Consoles FTW btw, anyone else here used to quit a game by writing "quit" in the console?

I've won quite a few local lans in ut2k4... I think that over the years I've probably won somewhere between 10 and 15 dutch lans in ut. Because I always thought that trying to win multiple competitions at the same time was more fun than just focussing on 1.

I never could bring myself to play cs seriously though... I tried it a bit... but it's not for me. Not because I suck at it... but just because the gameplay isn't fun for me.

Well i have to agree with asyyy on this one... You could say the UT engine is limited in terms of what u can do to set your mouse behaviour the exact way you want it (no accel threshold and what not...) and i heard here and there the input was not optimal but certainly NOT like u said "notoriously crap" as if it was a major very limiting flaw known by everyone, it's simply and purely not true.

What i'm clearly saying is, you are over over exaggerating a point that would certainly need to be worked on a bit more at Epicgames.
I have no problem to hop from one game to another with minor adjustments (basically due to netcode). I play both with similar settings (no accel, same sens roughly). So, no Weird, i wont say you're are wrong but, for the metaphor: you're doing a mountain out of a peanut :) .

We could say quake close range moves is a limitation regading UT's which you could not objectively contest and you would then answer than it's smoother and faster at high speed and i could not really either. Just well, no, it's not notoriously crap, sry :q .

UT has one of the worst input systems in the history of mankind as it's a huge struggle to even get your mouse to do what you want.

I keep reading that shit from pro-quake (which I also am) players, one would say highly biased, and despite being an extremely anal high accuracy player regarding inputlag/refreshrate/responsetime or anything that could affect my aim in a way or another really and having won a title on an UT game, I still have literally no idea have you guys are talking about.

Is that what quakers consider the ultimate flaw they invented to make themselves feel superior? I don't get it.

First of all no disrespect to you, but maybe you're less sensitive to inputlag than you think?
I kinda have the same problem... I get used to inputlag really fast. But just to be sure I played 1 game of ut2k4 again and damn that input system is shit.
I even forgot about how many centuries it takes for it to actually dodge-jump as it seems to be checking if you don't actually wanna use the invisiability key combo or smth.

That said I would personally have little issues with it as after a few games it'll feel normal. But switching from one game to the other... feels as if theres something significantly wrong with UT.

I'm with you but only to a point. Unreal Tournament or even Tribes Ascend input lag is only noticeable at lower frames per second (as you would expect) and they're typically locked to 92 or less either config or server side. Given UT is always released on the latest engine available at the time, you can expect it to feel laggy (or delayed) compared to QL or Source Games at launch unless you can turn everything down to a point where you hold that 120+ fps without the latest in hardware. I've personally had no problem with any Unreal Engine game once I've increased the FPS cap from 92 to 122+, but it's not always possible to hold that frame rate without a shit hot PC like mine (Tribes Ascend on launch was near impossible without a GTX680 or turning everything into lego). In that respect, UT4 Alpha currently defaults to 62 FPS with Motion Blur enabled, this is what they are developing and playtesting the game at.

The fact that despite all complaints with previous games, UT4 Alpha is not running at a high refresh rate, frame rate and with motion blur disabled out of the box is worrying. I'm fed up of going into the config files to change that basic shit in 2014. They have given us no reason to think it will change either. That said, everything they say in the videos is great, so maybe they'll surprise.

TL;DR Most people that complain are probably running at lower frame rates, i'd guess that is why. Part of that blame should be on the developer.

It's because some servers don't have the netspeed set above 10000, just type netspeed 10001 in console and it will unlock the fps from 85 again. You can set it up to 15000 without any problems. There's a good guide on UnrealNorth about different Max FPS and the different netspeed values to use.

I don't really have any intent on playing ut2k4... At least not "competitive" anymore.

But having to change ini files for it not to feel like shit is bad... they should've patched it or the mods should fix this stuff.

I actually spent like 3 hours on my last lan where I played UT... trying to get it to work at 120fps because it just looked and felt like shit... Now I was really focussing on QL there (which I did win) but I actually finished outside of the podium for the 2nd time ever in an UT competition... which was strange.
(The other time I lost to frag^m and the guy who beat him in the final of a netgamez edition back in the Q4 era)

don't gemme wrong btw...
I like the freedom that the manual configuration gives... I just think that in general you'd want to have a limited amount of choices (like 2 - 4) about how you want the game to look / feel.
And that then pretty much all settings in the game are fixed.

It requires a lot of work on the art direction to pull that off tho. Painkiller with brightskins and primevil's "picmipped" textures ( they're more desaturated than mushy/flat ) looks both fantastic and smooth as hell out of the box as long as you kill the bloom.

In a modern game that's how I'd do it : I'd have a preset that desaturates the map and kills a few things like bloom, some of the particle effects and some of the dynamic lights and you wouldn't be able to compete with anything *below* that preset.

Yeah I agree with that, would be great to have everything simplified in terms of EASE of configuration without destroying the freedom. I would also like an even playing field in terms of certain things being fixed to avoid overly unfair advantage. LAN ping for all too! :D

You can set your framerate independently of anything in ut3 btw, i gave countless times ini running at 120 fps hyper smooth (default is 62 locked, with 3 lines modified in the ini you can do wtf you want).

In ut2k4 it's more vicious, your fps is linked to your netspeed, so gl setting a proper always the same fps.

On the sidenote, really Weird you should not tell, sorry, stupid stuff like this:
"ehm... I don't think that any UT game actually runs at more than 80fps?"

Ut99 even has no prob to do that...Dont take UT exmaples if you're not 100% informed of what's possible/true ;p .

I perfectly noticed it, i was more underlining the fact you criticize games on very particular and subjective points such as mouse input while not even being sure you could play with more than 80 fps in those very games ;) .

it would be like me stating quakelive netcode "is shit" and i would not even know i could set some values for timenudge ( i take that very example because i know you know your sh*t in that aspect).

You would then, and very rightfully so, answer me: " you allow yourself criticizing ql netcode and you dont even know the very known/obvious parameters/settings to alter the feeling induced in the process.

No offence at all though, as i said, well...avoid using things you dont know enough on :p , fair enough, isnt it :p?

I'm a computer scientist and I couldn't figure out how to get UT2k4 to run at 120fps (on a lan, so I was pressed for time etc. I usually sign up for too many competitions on dutch lans). Nor did any of the other competitors I spoke knew how to set their fps. That to me sais a lot.
Now ofcourse I don't know many UT community sites. I guess they probably have a solution on their forum.
But imagine anyone who is less active in gaming and less used to altering cfg's... They will be kinda hampered by stuff like that.

Now most of this criticism is also applicable to Q3. As I mentioned above I think it's kinda rediculous that there are so many settings and ways to alter your interactions with the game.
Preferably you just want to have an option that puts you into "competitive mode" and sets all your graphics a certain way and fixes your other settings to "good values" as well. Basically that you only need to put your sensitivity to your preference and it'll work.

But I wanna emphasise the good things we currently have in QL and show the difference with other games :p (perhaps a bit exaghurated)

Well it depends "who" you met on LAN. Guys that installed the game 1 week before just to play that very lan?...Well ofc they would have no clues. Mister haggys, (hey astz :>) would have been there, it would have taken him few secs to tell/explain you.

Fact of the matter is it's the hardest (in Ut2k4) afaik to set a precise framerate because not everyone knows it's linked to netspeed =) (which is bs in a sense imo, whatever).

You just were unlucky. In ut3 it's has simple as ctrl+f "framerate" in the utengine.ini

If you want to unlock it, just set 999. I remember having between 600 and 2000fps (wen i tested out of curiosity) on our low poly competitve maps ( like Flustered) with my old but loyal q6600 and my now retired 8800gt.
You were just unlucky as in ut2k4 it's somewhat of a pain to obtain stable desired Framerate. Doesnt change the fact the game is very fun. I heard you though, maybe such options as important as setting framerate should appear in the UI ;) .

Secondly, well i'm very surprised from your "set competitive settings".
Do you really think there's only ONE UNIQUE competitive set of settings???
I know some very good players that plays with high gfx, some with extremely low. I personally play mid gfx. It would be only considering gfx, theres so much more than that...

This "tick competitive setting" option would be retarded tbh... Also you got to reckon a lot of settings are only customizable in the ini/cfg for the sake of clarity/efficiency in the UI. Imagine being able to tweak all the variable possible in ql in the UI??

Quakelive UI's is, imho, already impressive because even if not being exhaustive at all, it gives you such a big number of things to modify to your taste! I can't imagine a guy from console, used to tick "low/medium/high" now facing a humongous amount of settings, he would just go wtf and close it right away (the settings).

I spoke to several guys who actually went to these lans specifically to win the ut2k4 competitions (like Lekaim and Jiepee). Who are somewhat known I guess... I thought they both also did pretty good in shitmania or smth.
I haven't been following the competitive scene so much anymore hehe :(

As a player of both QW and UT99, I vow that the Unreal side has definitely inferior mouse input. I've noticed Quake to be always ahead in following games as well. And I know it's not just me because there's a bunch of fixes for it made by the community due to genuine demand.

Need to switch q4 with q3a in your graph, as busted as the engine was and as contradictory as some of the gameplay elements were ( the fuck was up with the slow weapon switch ? ) it wasn't nearly as bland as q3.

When a lot of us started playing Quake the world was a vastly different place. Sure consoles existed but in a much more basic form than what they are today. They offered no possibility to play online nor did they provide particularely good graphics.

Back then Quake was the "killer app" , a technical marvel which offered a multitude of things you simply could not get on a console. You could have some friends over , boot up quake and simply blow their minds. That is why Quake was popular, it was almost singularely unique. The same goes for Unreal.

Nowadays any current console can offer a number of games which are "killer apps" in their own right and offer the possibility of online gaming from your couch in full HD graphics. If youre a kid you do not ask your friends to come over and check out this "neat game called Quake live", it will not impress (most of) them. They'll just go "sure man thats neat i guess but those graphics kinda suck and i cant play it on my ps4/xbox one"

No amount of gameplay changing is going to change that, it's just not impressive enough any more.

In FPS games i do think graphics matter for a lot of people , especially for the generation which grew up with modern consoles.

In fun little games like Minecraft ofcourse they dont :)

Well thats where our opinion differs a lot, i think most console gamers do still get together to hang out and have some beers on the couch while playing something, and if they like the new game their buddy just bought they'll buy it themselves. For Quake Live thats not really a possibility.

well for console games yes you can get together with a few friends and play a bit. But PC games haven't been like that since the internet because so widely available.
The PC is much more "Personal" than a console.

simple, you use the PC for a lot of other personal things while you use a console almost exclusively for gaming (and or video related stuff).
Many people have their pc in their bedroom/study rather then in their livingroom. And I don't know a single person who does anything related to work on a console.
Therefor it's not so easy to "invite people over to do stuff behind the pc" while it is easy to do stuff together behind a console.

I agree. Different ages different knowledge and understanding of game play. Changing the game is all in good, to suit youngsters and a larger audience, however it may be better for them to make a different game, or build in an advanced tier system, and not ruin this one even more.

I know my nephews sit on the couch playing Blackops, on the xbox chatting with their m8s etc Very social, and good fun with school buddies, but my point is that Mouse Keyboard will always rule.

(Couch potato generation is not good anyway. At least we PC users sit up straight, with proper posture at a desk. O yeah and get some fresh air every now and again :)

I just think there"s a huge social stigma surrounding pc gamers, we are the nerds, not the console gamers.

And that's understandable, almost any office job these days implies sitting behind a pc all day, it's not "cool" to go home and do the exact same thing. I can actually agree with that up to a certain point.

yeah i get this, but then they can go do some exercise, or walk, but then they sit in front of TV for like 3-4 hours, that supposed to be the cool, so you can chat about it at work, repeat cycle.

So many hardworking people not behind desks, PC is just another good way to sit down put your feet up at the end of the day. (laptop on knee, or have a nice comfy setup at home)

If you get people who enjoy games at work place, then your in a winner. I used to work with 2 guys who were both quakers and one a v g CS player, and PC games and some console, was cool to talk about, and everything related, and ofc other stuff like football, tv etc.

I think the pc is still cool & more complete, but i'm of a different generation.

well, it depends on your current situation! maybe married or with a gf, already who is compatible with games. In QW I rem one couple who designed a church / type map and skinz dress and stuff to get married in a quake map! Now that is hardcore quake and some exceptional relationships :)

there was actually some study done, about the chemicals in the Males brain which were more receptive to FPS type games, than for women. But I am sure that there are more women out there that enjoy games. It's the balance in life though, that's the issue sometimes, until you meet the right one. The more women in games the better imo. If your gay, your probably okay anyway.!

Have you ever seen League of Legends? It has the most unimpressive graphics ever (reminds me of Warcraft 3), but manages to pull it off to gather an insane amount of palyers.

What QL needs is better skill tiers. The 4 tiers are very inaccurate. There need to be more. So that players don't get frustrated as easily. When you get your ass kicked for the 100th time, even tough it says "skill matched" in the server browser, you know that there is some work to do.

Yes it is good to have different people having different skillz, to apply those skillz to beat their opponents.

I am personally looking forward to 2GD's Reborn for many of the positive reasons you mentioned. Reborns Physics look good, seems smooth, movement looks dynamic both vertically and horizontally. He has right ideas about weapon application and balance of play, and that level of the unexpected. Coupled with manoeuvrability, shots, and with it being fast enough play style for an FPS. Just hope they can keep it going. It will have more LOL moments for sure. Hence more fun.

Yes I agree noone likes to be owned, especially all the time or every time they spawn. Great for the Owner, for their ego, but that's too easy, and not great for newbie player retention. Just hope they can get the balance right, and I don't think loadouts will do this. The more options the better though, and people will find their winning ways, or ways to survive..

My answer for a mod of CTF is to give the option of a grapple, which has always given an added LOL moments & different dimension for manoeuvrability.

Also the other part is Loadouts and stuff like that, Quake has had that feature anyway in a better way with "Weapons Stay" servers. So if you die,you can go pick up the weapon again straight away from where it is positioned on the map. Very playable for newcomers.

Better than loadouts imho, as loadouts are a bit too easy, especially for an experienced player to be loaded out straight away..

id hire Weird already, his netcode skills and out of the box thinking would be a great addition to Sync/Sponge, which contrary to what so many people say arent dumb or hate the game. But theyre kind of JCarmish, weird would add some JRomerish to QL.

"If you'd be able to hear jumps throughout the entire map and thus know where any 'fast moving opponent is' the overall gamespeed will be much slower, even if you do not alter any movement/weapon balance.
Similarly if you'd remove jumpsounds from the game theres less penalty in moving fast and thus the gamespeed will increase.
It is difficult to say who this would most favor though ;)"

This isn't necessarily true at all, and could even be flat out wrong - I'd argue it was the other way around - not being able to reliably locate your opponent forces a more cautious and cagey gamestyle.

in general though - you are too focussed on duel. when I started playing quake, it was all about CTF. also, while the quake community might have morphed into a very small and hyper competitive scene, it was not always like that. in many gamers minds, quake3 brings up memories of the longest yard FFA and not item timing in 1v1... the appeal of q3 to the casual gamer at its peak was not at all what people seem to think it was...

Atm when you play "cautious and cagey" your opponent also can't reliably locate you (at least not according to jumps because you're playing cautious and cagey). While you can reliably locate him.
Why aren't people a shitload more cautious and cagey atm?

compared to games with global sound systems ql is slow and cagey though isn't it? it may also have something to do with ql's heavier movement though.

for me, the only reason to be cagey and slow around the map is either to set up a trap, or because you are looking for cues as to where your opponent is and what he is doing. theoretically, during this time, I could be doing something else that allows me to more quickly engage my enemy if i am dominant or collect the resources he needs to contest if I'm not. waiting around and sneaking is usually not the optimal thing to do. usually, you will sneak around, get a cue, be it visual or audio and make a decision on what to do or where to go based on the information it provides and the state of the game. these few seconds add up over the course of a game to a slower pace due to the fact that it takes longer for a dominant player to find and kill his enemy and the dominated player longer to safely collect armor and weapons to challenge. that's the way I see it anyway, but maybe my logic is faulty...

You mean compared to warsow and CPM that QL is somewhat slower?
Because I don't know that many games which are actually faster than QL hehe....

Anyway as long as it's an FPS I can fairly accurately estimate how changing it will effect the gameplay...
Look at me in 2010 saying that LG would become too powerfull on medium-high pings (40 - 70) with +forward style as a result of netcode... People back then told me I was crazy...

what is there to understand? you make an assertion that i challenge and provide a rationale for. instead of offering counter arguments, you fall back on the fact that you are some B-list quake/ut player or something (truth be told, i dont know who the fuck you are...)

if this is how you put your ideas or opinions forward, its no surprise nobody listened to you. you are unable to rationalise your own thoughts and have too big an ego to debate and engage with others ideas/thoughts honestly.

summary:Weird must be wrong because not being able to reliably locate your opponent forces a more cautious and cagey gamestyle. But atm the cagey/cautious player is already un-reliable to locate while he can locate the other player

compared to games with global sound systems ql is slow and cagey though isn't it?Which other games?(cpm / wsw)
Because I think I can explain why they differ

cpm/wsw maybe but dunno; there arent many games with truly non occluded sound engines though. But anyways Weird's arrogance is so missplaced, even though I don't know who he is

I don't see where I'm being such a dick.
Btw I don't know what you consider a B-list player... I used to be pretty good at this stuff. Perhaps not as good as cypher / rapha but I got a lot of top8 finishes in online competitions.

yes, and when the other player loses track of his opponent due to him slowing down and not giving off any cues any more, he will more than likely slow things down himself in order not to make a big blunder and regain his awareness by hearing or spotting the other player.

there's obviously more to what makes a game fast or slow than just its sound engine but the relationship between lack of information and risk-taking seems clear to me. if you dont have reliable information, you dont take big risks until you get some. sound is not the only source of information in quake games ofcourse (item state and player inventory can provide information aslong as you have an accurate read on it) but it is probably the biggest, if not, one of them.

you are being a dick because you say things like "a lot of people have a lot of stuff backwards about quake." and then don't actually explain why.

when pushed you come out with "Anyway as long as it's an FPS I can fairly accurately estimate how changing it will effect the gameplay..."

"not as good as cypher / rapha but I got a lot of top8 finishes in online competitions" That doesn't automatically make you right, nor should you rely on it or feel entitled by it.

Because according to your own logic; when you "loose track of the opponent" you should start to play more cautious as the risk is bigger.
I said that even in current QL / Q3 if you do play cagey you rarely give off a sound. While your opponent does. (as QL / Q3 is not really "cagey" but one of the fastest games out there)

Now if you remove jump sounds... then which side would that favor?
The player that already plays cagey, and thus is already silent, or the player that is on the hunt and in general gives off a lot of sound just before he reaches the cage?

""not as good as cypher / rapha but I got a lot of top8 finishes in online competitions" That doesn't automatically make you right, nor should you rely on it or feel entitled by it."
I didn't say it makes me right I questioned your comment on me "being some B-list player". As tbh I find it somewhat of an insult depending on what you'd consider as a B-list ;p

I guess its possible that with no movement sounds entirely it would perhaps advantage the fast mover, but equally it could neutralize the entire purpose of playing cagey and slowing down. it could have the opposite effect forcing both players to slow down. I guess it would depend on the individuals preference and style more than some identifiable metagame. would be an interesting experiment I think.

As a frequent esreality lurker I would like to give a big thank you to Weird for this column. It sums up perfectly the thoughts I had while reading the leaked changes and I agree in every way.

I'd like to see the community grow alot but I disagree with dumbing down the "core" of the game. Of course it makes it hard for a game like Quake to get new players since there is literally no one that takes your hand and guides you in your first couple of hours. Sure there's a tutorial and stuff but let's face it unless you check out how strafejumping and rocketjumping works on youtube tutorials you won't get it done right just by starting the tutorial that quake has to offer. Other games are more patronizing in that matter which is completely necessary to keep new players interested to learn more.

Id should hire like Rapha to do ingame videotutorials where he explains how to do the basics showing the keyboard, then also advanced extra tips.
This promotes pro-players and helps newbies. I said Rapha because he is the most well spoken top player.

UT movement is limiting? On the contrary! However i do agree, quake has a very smooth feel when it comes to moving at long distances, but it feels im being crippled in close combat compare to UT. UT offers much more in terms of dodging, and as matter of fact handling UT weapons is much more challenging than quake weps. So there you have it, some tips where could QL improve at.

See, i would call that a perfect self owned.
Your message reflects your knowledge of UT in general ( barely above 0).

To answer you, no u can't know at all (the harder it gets with the more skilled the guy is), especially in ut3 when u are very VERY free of movements midair (and that's awesome compared to a paraplegic bag of 10kilos bricks in ql).
Also "fkn slow rox", once again maybe in ut99, but for 2k3/2k4 and ut3, rox are for sure faster than in ql. It's very easy to hit airox in ql actually esp close/mid range).
What you describe could be, comparatively saying, like neglecting 90% of the process when a guy jump/strafe in ql dont you know where he will land??? Ofc yes and it's way way easier to predict where he will in ql, period. In UT, as u pass more time mid air, the more time you wait to shoot the guy and be sure to know where he will land, the more you give him time to shoot at you.
Once again, lets try together. I propose ql and ut3 (or even better Hypno for ut3). Ready when u are to compare ;) .

Lol I just asked :D
I only played some UT99. And a bit of singleplayer in some newer UT. Maybe 2004? Maybe 2002? How many is there, hesus...
And yeah in quake when someone jumps you know where he will land, that's why jumping is not the best idea most of the time.

Didn't people bitch about this freedom in air? Now UT4 has only 1 walljump, right?

Add to that the different combination with hammer: hammer jump, hammer jump wall dodge, hammer jump boots (i realize i didnt try to hammer jump then walldodge and then boots =) )
Also u can now effectively rocket jump quite high (i tested and reached like ~4 player height's approx.) and ofc the combo with it (i only tried rocket jump + boots) from what i could notice from testing it fast was: max rl height roughly equals jumpboots height (i precise again: from what i tested myself, it worth what it worth)

There are also boost dodge and a kind of roll dodge thing i didnt experienced yet

Well man they said it on stream. They will include it as a feature and not a by-product.
They see it that way: hammer jump is a low investing risk jump. Doesnt cost you more in hp and allow you to do it whenever you please (you always spawn with hammer no matter what) but you cant go significantly higher than a jump.
Rocket jump is more risky because it costs more hp (~50) but u go way higher.

I ran into crapbringer on the atrocious ego whore-o-sphere-cum-popularity circus that is twitter, and obviously the topic of the potential QuakeLive changes, the game's imminent future, the tough balancing act of the developers between the hardcore community's desires and the shallow requests of the suits in charge (as well as the impact those changes might have on ESR and its denizens) all were somewhat high on the agenda.

Yo dawg, I heard you liked walls of text... so I put a wall of text in your etc. Tried to cut it as short as I could. It's a commentary on both the suggested changes and a lot of the responses others were making. Hope it's not repeating itself too much...

I think it's true that the game is somewhat badly documented at the moment, you have to look around everywhere around the internet for materials that random people have gathered and created to learn how movement actually works for example. Introducing new tutorials with simple features that FAN creations now offer (the mod for Q3 that shows you the angles to hit for strafing, forget its name, raztrain_beta3, whatever else) would make it completely justified for the game to have the rather deep physics that it currently has. So those who want to get into the game could do so much easier than current. Having those 3 training maps is a good start.

That having been said the game manual (which isn't specifically advertised to new players or perhaps it was) is a neat little package of info. I don't recall if the manual was always there but it covers a wide array of topics as of now.

Those who don't care so much for movement or timing will always have game modes that allow them to forget about that stuff. I remember finding CA appealing at first because I could use it to practise any weapon at any time and also not be concerned with losing health to my rocket jumps or falling or timing... There's instagib too.

As for individual changes suggested by the leak:
-visual timers on items: Timing should be made into a tutorial where you just circle around the map trying to collect an increasing number of items in rotation as they spawn. Setting up a match with a running timer even though you're the only one playing should be easier. What DuskAU said about new players not even knowing the respawn times is true but to be fair it is mentioned in the game manual.
-automatic fast movement: Less effort, less reward. However, if this doesn't set a cap on regular movement (as I now believe should be understood) then it doesn't necessarily change anything for old-timers. And the auto-speed increase is probably gonna be slower than by using strafing... so yeah if it's a nerfed version of regular strafing then it's no problem to have this for new players. Still I think it would be best just to create better tutorials and learning tools, it's not rocket science after all.
-hold jump to auto-jump (but increase min jump intervals): I'm quite indifferent about this though the above applies. I feel this won't affect most chain jump possibilities because 1/10 of a second is still quite a short time.
-loadouts: Sounds like an experiment to do for some months and collect feedback. If I could decide what the different loadouts were for my custom game modes, that sounds great and would increase variety. I have plenty of custom game modes planned out that will use "classes" of fighters to create interesting and varied gameplay. HOWEVER, I would be aghast if this was introduced but I couldn't configure it the way I wanted, i.e. not in that particular form (one primary triad and one secondary "triad" weapon).
-gauntlet increases ground movement speed: Doesn't sound too bad to me. I don't feel it's necessary but it won't ruin things either so to have this as an option seems ok. However wouldn't that affect things like how far you can jump if your circle jumps have a greater top speed? Like someone said, there's probably always going to be a new "pros only" jump if b2r is becoming a bit easier.
-unified weapon respawn 5 secs: So TDMers are going to go "reduces tactical complexity" and I get that. On the other hand public TDM and other public modes were never for the hardcore anyway (and hardly got any players afaics. If you're that much into the game maybe you SHOULD be paying something for it.
-global ammo packs: this reminds me of Deus Ex: Invisible War. People did not like DX:IW. at least not like the original and the dumbing down was oft-quoted as a reason.
-taller pickup collision boxes: This I simply agree with. I don't think anyone was using the ability to jump over items intentionally for anything. Even in dueling you usually have a way of going around the item instead.
-Visual power-up spawn indicators: again, this is kinda backwards when the sound cues would probably be enough in themselves (unless you're playing with no sounds I guess) but when I got started, I never learned what those sudden random sounds meant until later. Lack of tutorials. All in all this is fine, good when playing with no sounds.
-self-kills with 1 sec additional spawn time: too little context to understand this...
-railgun, rocket splash, gauntlet, lg damage: don't really care about these because these are things I can configure to my liking if I suddenly find this breaks one of the game modes (i.e. they're available to tinker with when starting a match). Increased rocket splash and reduced lg damage gives rockets more viability over lg in CA or dueling which doesn't sound like a bad thing. Sure, something to try I guess.
-Heavy Machine Gun: kinda like how Super Shotgun replaced Just Shotgun or how Just Nail Gun had no use when you had your Super Nail Gun in Quake... The marginal weapons, especially the BFG, sometimes just feel superfluous to me. The BFG is kinda like the rockets but more deadly and not terribly fun to play against. The Chaingun is not too too different from having the lg... so all in all I don't think the current weapon selection is the consummation of anything, it deserves experimentation like this. Thumbs up!
-No call vote team sizes: TBH this was a bit of a hassle, but how can you settle on a size that works well with all arenas? I guess 5v5 suits most of them but not all.

I think a lot of these changes could come together on "newb servers". Global ammo packs, power-up spawn indicators, easier movement. I think I'm not the only one to suggest this.

All in all changes like these (if they are actually going to get implemented) seem like of secondary value compared to adding further support features for new players trying to get into the game. Why can't you just create a feature that shows you live with keypresses how a circle jump works and then gives you feedback for how well you did each part? It's not that it's hard at first to get your strafing or your whatever skill going, but the required information is currently UNDER THE GROUND. I had no way of knowing I wasn't supposed to be holding down the jump button when strafing until I accidentally bumped into some obscure secondary clause somewhere.

To counter-argument myself here I should say that there's always some line to draw between holding their hands and letting people figure things out on their own, but right now the balance is too far in the latter direction. Nobody feels smart when they realize the mistake they had been making that prevented, say, clean plasma climbs, they just feel frustrated that it was so hard to come by the information they needed.

Senior community members could act as guides for new players as well.

Making more things Pro only: I don't think f2p people have too much right to complain about changes their money IS NOT going towards funding in a game they've been enjoying for free for however much experience they're leaning back on for authority of opinion. Okay, so you're too poor for the pro sub? At least you could support one of the twitch channels or something else related (buy another id game?). At that point I'll appreciate your presence in these discussions. The pro sub seems SO worth its price at this point for what I'm using it for after having had it for a few months. I've seen games that cost you 2-3 times more to sub to. You can even run a private server 24/7 if you like. If you're poor maybe you can agree to pay for a sub amongst your friends and whoever holds the rights to use is can set up a server of your liking and invite the rest over (up to 5 non-subs per sub which is quite generous if you ask me).

What attracts me to the movement in this game is as much the speed itself as the challenge it poses me. What I realized I'm constantly doing as I play is trying to do it as well as I can. It makes every moment meaningful knowing I won't just automatically be brought to my goal without controlled effort and practise. There exist several trick jumps on various maps that I realized might be possible to do and I'm just happy they're there even if I haven't managed to perform some of them yet. In fact the day there's no more tricks like that (which will thankfully never come because of the capless speeds) is the day I'm going to have to look for a new game. However, I already know I might be getting into PQL or even CPMA later for that very reason. Those are not BETTER than VQL, they're just more advanced modes for more experienced players.

Just a random thought here... There's two kinds of rewards or motivators for players to want to improve. One is because it's fun to see the improvement. That's the good one. The other is because the player wants to be better compared to others. That's the bad one, because not everyone CAN friggin be better than everyone else. If you have the right motivator it doesn't matter at all if you lose badly, that's just not interesting to think about. The first type of player you CAN cater to, the second you CANNOT.

Like someone pointed out in a post from 2010, the in-built Rocket and Strafe Training maps aren't so much tutorials (even with the videos that are supposed to serve that purpose) as they are exams. And like that person said, how can you be given the exam before the teaching? I was struggling until very recently with the kind of limitless plasma jump that I had seen people do in videos and now it's ridiculously simple after I've finally seen a good enough external tutorial. Could you even as much as link some of those? Zoot e.g. recently did/started a series on QL movement that would do a pretty good job at teaching some of that stuff to noobs like me.

Yeah so all in all if you start making Quake into Cod and whatever, it loses what made it unique and lovable. Okay, so you might get new players. But why should they stay? Why can't they hop onto the next train the next day if your game is now the same as everyone else's games? I admit I'm exaggerating there, these changes aren't really gonna do that except for the loadouts thing. I think the others here seem to agree with this.

You people afraid of splitting up the player base? What I've found with recent experiences with a clan that I started is that I don't need 10 000 people to be online at the same time with me (or playing the same game modes). I just need a few good friends. We play all sorts of game modes not trying to get super good at any single one of them. In fact the more we can think of the more reason that gives us to stick around. There's always something new to experience. I used to play CA. Now I don't. Because I realized there was nothing new in it any more. So I'm saying it's not necessary to have conformity to ensure people will stick around. Everyone can find their niche, their "table", and so long as they enjoy their stay in that niche they're going to stay regardless of what the rest of the player base is doing. In fact I'd probably enjoy myself more as part of a greater community knowing that there's a great amount of heterogenuity, that I could join some random server and they're playing some weird game mode I've never seen before but that makes sense... For finding people to play with there already exists the clan forums and friend forums which are great to have around. Maybe those should be advertised more then?

To be clear, there's nothing WRONG with the game modes that come ready-made at current. It's more that the people who play those tend to sometimes take the game so seriously that it doesn't feel fun any more.

It should be encouraged to share your knowledge and tips with less experienced players. If you're one of those people saying "why don't more people wanna play TDM?", it's definitely not because it's hard to get into all the timing-etc.-things, it's because you're getting zero support from anyone. The people playing QL are often really unlikeable. There's no tutorials (official ones at least). There's clans but a lot of them emphasize high-level play too much (either that or the clan seems to exist for generally no reason at all like some of the ones I'm running into). Why don't some of you old-timers start clans that offer people instruction, accepting all levels of players? Creating balanced teams? Maybe it's not id's job after all to try to make YOUR favourite game mode look more attractive.

Hello guys, I play Quake Live since 2009 and I have also played Q3A.
In my limited experience I find things to improve in order to have a more balanced game does not have the damage of the weapons or the type of shuffle ...
Both the netcode. There are thousands of players who are forced to 1600, 1800, 1900 elo for years and most do not go up. They are forced to play duel with his friend of the same skills because they know that because ISP, not individual skill, they will never play tournaments before division or at least really get noticed on the scene of Quake Live. Only players who have a great route to the server or warp like whores and a line without JITTER come to gamble with the best. You know, to play at the top that takes more than skill means.
I think that if you find a way to overcome this incredible difference online, the game would not only be much more balanced, but it will avoid certain things. it is normal that you want to drop to give the LG ... but so would no longer Quake. The weapon damage is nice as it is, has been weakened the rail to make it less-Game Camp and increase the fighting at medium-short distances that are the most exciting. On the other hand, the rail is pretty even with 80 dmg, it's nice having to make two impressive to take down an opponent in duel.
There's a reason some players only play tdmpickup or FaceIt and I do not think it is only for their skill. Let's face it :). I hope it stays as it is in the Quake game-play but that there are more substantial in future updates that the graphics of the site ...

Well you could bitch about "prediction code" vs "netcode" but in practise "prediction code" is included in "netcode", as it influences what kind of stuff you send (either by influencing the players actions (aiming at a predicted model)... or by altering the actions (in some way as to 'predict' them)).
However QL doesn't "predict" a single thing so "prediction code" can't possibly be the cause.

The "anti-warp" isn't really needed anyway. The problem is that in QL it "pays to warp", the warper gets the benefit in an unlagged situation.
Do you really think that internet nowadays is so unstable that half of the people online actually warp?
I know a few players who actually turn on torrents when they want to win matches :(

ID made a non-seen game so far. Great.
Q3 was improved by the community.
ID made a non-seen integration into an on-offline symbiosis.
QL will need to be improved by the community, once ID open the gates (source code and restrictions) to the coders.

1. Yet, it was and still is ALL ABOUT CUSTOMIZATION - the freedom to start a server with whatever settings, with w/e maps, weapons and so on. E.g. now there is flag navigation, ingame awards, item timers, etc. - all distractors from the real game (ye, things I hate about modern FPS - full of HUD details, and a very little game itself)
2. Also the PACE (admirations for 250 fps), but that shouldn't mean insane rocket/rail push.
3. Server LAUNCH, control, and LOCATION. For example, North Africans, Turkeys are suffering lack of servers in their area, having to play on 80-90 ping on EU servers.

And so many more negatives, than actually improving the game.
I'd say, yes, physics is better, yes, weapon balance is better (until the last update), yes texture lighting is better. That's it.

[QL will need to be improved by the community] input is good, but so many counter others opinions, and some things just don't work out, even as you see by the most experienced of trial'ers with QL. We all have ideas, me included, some are good, some are shit, some are taken on board some are not, but fingers crossed all this community input will all be ironed out by the steam release.

Hopefully they will fix / partially disable more loadout's on maps, with the current map pool. I believe that its not the numbers of players on the maps, that's causing the loadout problem, its the map size and distance between action points and spawn points, with the result that your are getting raped too fast too soon Its like pointing five or six spawners at the one focal point, constantly loaded out, that's spammy. Not tactical, slightly skill based, but not enough time to show off your skill.

"new maps" for e.g. if you spawn, and the spawn system were tweaked on a new map design, you could be "spawning / standing" away from action. You are not going to gain anything by just standing there, nor for your team, or yourself if FFA, and should therefore get back to the focal point for action. (obviously we don't want it to be too sniper / long distance spam focused at action points either!)

"current maps" for e.g. your spawn is at the action, you are more than likely to get LG'ed up ass, or LG' someone up ass, or deliver a High power weapon off the spawn to the next spawner and back and forth, until everyone just dies of exhaustion.

Some balance or tweaking of the maps and spawns might be beneficial. Or better still some "new" maps to "suit" loadouts.

The game speed and movement is second to none imo, and that controllable speed is what made all the Quake games so much fun. If the maps were big as they used to be in like Quake 1(a faster game), then you could disappear, "but", to what benefit to your team around focal points, so you would need to get to focal point, and then make your attacks or defences.

Obviously there is a balance, but loadouts does not compute with spawn and map size on many of the current and old favourites, which is a shame. But may compute on other designed maps.

With the changes to Hearth, this has made a slight improvement, but still is too close counters on anything more than 8 players, which imo, is not what FFA is all about. Its about lots of players, having lots of time, not to be shown on the scoreboard if your having a bad day. :) . Depends what you want I suppose, maybe people like that type of spam off the start?

I've played Quake 2 for 18 years, and also played a lot of Quake 3/Quakelive in that time, as well as some Quakeworld. I can tell you with certainty that Quake 3/Quakelive is the most shallow and simplistic in terms of game-play depth.

The physics and movement in Quakelive are very poor, and models bounce around unnaturally. The movement isn't very complex, and though double jumping was introduced, it's still very pointless with most map designs. Not to mention that Quake 3/Qlive feels very clunky and heavy compared to Quake 2 and Quakeworld.

(Let me clear up a myth as well: Quake 3/Qlive is NOT as fast as Quake 2 post 3.20 patch. Yes, the weapon switching is faster, and the rocket speed seems faster because of that engines geometry being bulkier, but overall Quake 2 moves at a faster pace.)

The sound in Quake 3/Qlive is piss poor. You can really only hear footsteps, jump sounds, and item collection within a limited radius, making sound somewhat limited in terms of player detection and sound manipulation to use against the opponent. I've been a dueler since I started playing Quake, and my ears are fine tuned for hearing everything, and I can tell you that the sound in Quake 3/Qlive is just bad.

The weapon in Quakelive is very newbie friendly and has an imbalanced damage scale between defensive and aggressive weapons. In a game were people spawn with a handicapped health count, the railgun shouldn't be doing 80 damage.

One of the biggest problems with Quakelive is that a much larger skill gap is required to purely dominate other players. This is actually bad for player growth, and it means that players won't learn or improve quite as fast or efficiently as they should be.

There are lots of other problems with Quakelive, but it's 3:15 a.m. and I'm going to bed ...

Yes the quake 3 single player was a better method to building up your skill opposed to quakelive' straining introduction as it was longer with many foes to beat. And also it had the skill levels like doom. So coming out of that and going into an online game was a good transition for me.